


Chthonic

by khilari



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, F/M, Persephone AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2321054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A God of Growth, hemmed about by his father's expectations, is kidnapped by a Goddess of Death and taken to her strange and sinister but oddly appealing underworld.</p><p>-----</p><p>A loose retelling of the myth of Persephone and Hades with Gil and Agatha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chthonic

Once there was a god. A young god, although such things are measured not in years but in unrealised potential. Whatever he was to become, he was not yet. He was a God of Growth, and in this he took after his father, the God of Harvest.

The God of Harvest was a sober god. He had been wilder once. In the secret shadows of the woods he had grown strange mushrooms, in the bushes he had strung brilliant berries, on the trees he had grown satin nuts. When men made orchards he had painted the fruits jewel shades, when they made farms he had painted the crops in shades of gold. But that had been long ago — he loved humans and now he sought joylessly to fill their bellies, apportioning his time by schedule, resting seldom.

His son was still joyful. The God of Growth filled the woods with bluebells, scattered the crops with cornflowers and poppies, made dandelions with his own messy exuberance that pushed their way through every crack in the cities of men. All this he did as he followed in his father’s wake, half in mischief and half in pride — look what I can do! exclaimed the flowers with their scatter of colour. He followed his father into herb gardens and taught the mint exuberance and the chamomile resilience.

But his father was not impressed.

When he was not with his father he was kept in a garden. He could have left, he had taught the ivy to climb and the walls were not so high as that, but he loved his father and it was that which caged him most surely. What he wished for was not escape, but to be invited out for more than lessons or tests. In the meantime his garden grew around him, his pent up energy driving the flowers ever wilder, larger, stranger. He grew flowers in the shape of the bees that always swarmed around him to tease them. He grew flowers with teeth. His garden was hidden beneath a canopy of flowers and vines, so that he lived in a green light and a haze of heavy scent.

Then one day the Goddess of Death appeared before him. He might have expected her to be terrible, but she was not. She was the goddess, too, of secret places beneath the earth; she held the gleam of gold in her hair and wore fossils like jewels. She was beautiful, and more than that, as she stood with a confidence that said she had every right to be where she was. Death is irresistible.

She held out her hand and he took it, feeling bewitched by her, by the deep, bright green of her eyes, somehow different from any plant he had ever grown. The earth split under them, and they fell through its crust, through void, to the Gates of Death where it caught them again and set them down.

‘Have you kidnapped me?’ asked the God of Growth. He was more curious than afraid — there had been little in his life to fear and he was as vigorous as grass, confident he could grow back as strong after crushing.

To his surprise the Goddess of Death blushed. He had not thought death could. ‘Maybe a little,’ she said. ‘Mostly I wanted to talk somewhere your father wouldn’t find us.’

‘I can understand that,’ he said. The Gates of Death were forbidding, adorned with skulls, but the harpies sitting above them were playing dice, one with green feathers, one with brown, one with bright purple and a flowing peacock’s tail, all of them casually dangling legs with claws like iron hooks. The three-headed dog at the gatepost came forward with her tail wagging.

‘I admit I wasn’t planning to do it quite so abruptly,’ she said, as if she wasn’t quite talking to him, and a rumbling laugh sounded around them. She sighed. ‘Grandfather,’ she said, and, when he still looked questioning, ‘The Earth. I know its secrets so it takes an interest. Too much of one.’ She was still holding his hand, he found he didn’t want to pull away. Now she stopped scratching the dog’s many ears and took his other hand too, holding them both gently between them. ‘Would you stay a while?’ she asked. ‘I love it here, but there are no other gods.’

The God of Growth thought of his garden, of his isolation, of his ever busy father. ‘I have responsibilities,’ he said, reluctantly. She looked down. ‘But,’ he added, ‘if I’ve been kidnapped it’s not my fault I’m not fulfilling them.’ They weren’t real responsibilities, anyway, his father didn’t trust him with those. He squeezed her hands and felt like a night blooming flower, furling open to the gentle dark. ‘I can stay a while.’

The Land of the Dead was lit with gold and jewels that gave out their own light, painting everything in strangely vivid shades. The dead themselves were stranger, light, flickering things. Released from human flesh they were a little closer to gods, their memories and longings flickered as small magics in their hearts. Wherever the Goddess of Death went they flocked to her, opening their hearts to her, and she would pull one close, reach in… and one who had never been the artist he dreamed of being would find his aspirations shining through the gems she had been placing. One who had suffered from nightmares would find the monster from them now part of her retinue. Dinner was conjured from the memories of meals past, all the ones that had left lasting impressions on the senses, all as perfect as nostalgia painted them. But the God of Growth did not eat.

‘I can’t stay forever,’ he said, regretfully.

‘You won’t be able to even if you want to unless you eat,’ she said. ‘Your father will take you back.’

‘He might not miss me,’ said the God of Growth. But he knew better.

That night he was shown to a room made of the memories of princes. The Witch Goddess led him there, carrying a pearl necklace in her hand as a lantern. He slept restlessly in the lifeless lands, and woke the next morning to find luminous moss blotching the ceiling.

Life was a novelty in the land of the dead. The Goddess of Death wanted to grow things with him, she took fertile earth from a farmer’s heart and ended the day with her arms overflowing with henbane, nightshade and hellebore. She took him to the banks of the Styx, where the river’s strange energy bound the Land of the Dead and held the wrathful souls to its banks. They grew flax there, where it grew huge and white on the arcane energies, and poppies that grew like blood red dishes scattered with jet, to calm the souls and make them sleepy, her energies winding with his, sleep and death with life and growth. She took him to the secret places of the earth and he left life behind, tiny organisms that could survive without air, without light, under pressure.

The first time she kissed him he felt as if she could open his heart the way she did the hearts of the dead, take his love for her and make something brighter than the sun. But she was kind, or maybe cruel, and only drew back leaving him wide-eyed and trembling with longing. The first time he kissed her she responded fiercely, they ended it panting and clinging under the new-spread branches of an oleander tree.

The Witch Goddess still saw him to bed every night, or perhaps merely when he was tired, for he did not know how much time had passed in this endless jewel-lit night. The bed was made with silks, but the God of Growth ignored it and sat by the window, looking out at the Land of the Dead and its strange colours, feeling happy and unhappy.

‘Hyu should sleep,’ said the Witch Goddess, with a flash of her sharp teeth.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘My father must be worried.’

‘Hy knew him vhen he vos young,’ she said. ‘Hy vill go and mek sure he hasn’t done anyting too stupid.’ She pointed a finger at him like a spear. ‘Hyu keep our Mistress happy.’

She returned, the hem of her dress wet, and told them it was time they saw the upper world. They stepped out into snowdrifts, white as diamonds, the sun playing on it like the jewel-light of the world they had left.

‘How beautiful!’ said the Goddess of Death, spinning around in it, gold and ivory against its pallor.

‘The crops can’t have survived this!’ said the God of Growth. ‘What was my father thinking?’

‘He haz had odder tings on his mind,’ said the Witch Goddess significantly.

‘He wouldn’t neglect the humans just to look for me,’ said the God of Growth. ‘…Would he?’

The Goddess of Death put one hand, cold as the snow, on his arm. ‘Come home,’ she said. ‘They’ll be happy enough in my kingdom.’

‘But they should live first!’ he said. ‘I have to go back.’

She looked at him, and then she leant up to kiss him. It started as a brief kiss, tender and regretful, and melted accidentally into passion. She stepped back and caught her breath. ‘Life is beautiful too,’ she said, looking at him. She closed her hand and when she opened it there was a pomegranate. She cut it open, spilling seeds like rubies, like blood drops, into the snow. Alone as they were he wondered whose heart she had pulled it from. Perhaps her own. ‘How much would let me bind you to visit sometimes?’ she asked, and he could hear a tremor in her voice.

He reached out and took a pinch of seeds, six, bright and slippery between his fingers, and dropped them onto his tongue, sweet and tart. He swallowed and kissed her again, with the juice still on his lips. ‘I have to go,’ he said, holding her.

‘I know,’ she answered.

It was a beautiful world that the God of Growth set off into, but it looked sad and cold. The trees were all naked, so he gave some of them little needle leaves that wouldn’t feel the cold. The flowers were all dead so he made snowdrops to push through, and set holly bushes to growing for a splash of colour. He did not know where to look for his father, so he simply went, and in this he was truly his father’s son. For when his father found him, drawn by the new growth, he was ragged with walking, bent with weariness, as if he had searched for his son by walking the whole world alone.

‘Father,’ said the God of Growth, and he clasped his hands and stood up straighter, waiting for a reprimand.

‘Where have you been you irresponsible child!’ the God of Harvest growled like summer thunder.

The God of Growth thought of the Land of the Dead and strange places under the earth, where he had found love and been fearless. He stepped forward, leaving footprints in the snow right down to the greening grass, and hugged his father. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

Arms closed around him, wrapping him warm against the cold air. But the air was warming now, too, the snow thawing from around their feet, crocuses bursting open through the last traces of snow.

That year the crops grew exuberantly, and so did the weeds and wildflowers. Everything did, making up for the cold start that had made it die back. The God of Harvest and the God of Growth walked the world side by side, leaves in their hair. Until there came a time when a hellebore pushed through at the God of Growth’s feet like a message and the Earth cleared its throat.

‘I owe someone a visit,’ said the God of Growth.

His father frowned. ‘You’re needed here.’

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘They’ve had enough of a harvest to last them for a while. You can let things die back a bit and we’ll make up for it when I’m back.’ He thought of sleep and death twining with life and growth, thought of lessons learned in the Land of the Dead.

His father sighed. ‘Go on, then.’ More grudgingly he added, ‘Give her my regards.’

The God of Growth grinned and beneath him the Earth opened, delivering him home.


End file.
